October 2016

Friday, April 29, 2016

Italian authorities arrested six suspects who allegedly received orders from the Islamic State terrorist group to attack the Vatican and the Israeli embassy in Rome.

The arrests made in Lombardy and Piedmont April 28 were the result of a joint operation coordinated by the district attorney of Milan and the Italian anti-terrorism agency.

According to the Italian news agency ANSA, authorities arrested Abderrahim Moutaharrik and his wife, Salma Bencharki; Abderrahmane Khachia, and three people who have maintained contact with a couple that left Italy to join the Islamic State in Syria. All of the suspects are of Moroccan origin.

A warrant has been issued for the couple, Mohamed Korachi and his Italian wife, Alice Brignoli, who are believed to have left for Syria in 2015.

Authorities monitored a series of conversations between the suspects via WhatsApp. One of the messages sent to Moutaharrik said: “Dear brother Abderrahim, I send you … the bomb poem … listen to the sheik and strike,” ANSA reported.

Milan prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli told reporters authorities believe the word “sheik” is a reference to Islamic State leader Abu-Bakir Al-Baghdadi. He also said the messages, intercepted in February and March 2016, mentioned a strike against the Israeli embassy as well as against Christian pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

“I swear I will be the first to attack them in this Italy of crusaders, I swear I’ll attack it, in the Vatican God willing,” a message from one of the arrested suspects stated, according to ANSA.

Friday, December 25, 2015

When the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared,not because of any righteous deeds we had donebut because of his mercy,He saved us through the bath of rebirthand renewal by the Holy Spirit,whom he richly poured out on usthrough Jesus Christ our savior,so that we might be justified by his graceand become heirs in hope of eternal life.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

“This is the miracle the Good Lord gave me: while I was a prisoner I was waiting for the day I would die, but with a great inner peace. I had no problem dying for the name of Our Lord; I wouldn't be the first or the last, just one of the thousands of the martyrs for Christ,” the Syriac Catholic priest, Father

“I want to thank all those who prayed for my liberation. It's truly a miracle that a priest has been freed from the hands of the Islamic State. A miracle that the Virgin Mary worked for me.”

Father Mourad was prior of the Monastery of Mar Elian in the Syrian town of Al Qaryatayn, about 60 miles southeast of Homs.

He said he was captured with another young man on May 21 after the militants arrived at the monastery.

“The first four days we were in the mountains, locked up in the monastery's car we were captured in,” he said. “On Aug. 11 we were taken to near Palmyra, where there are 250 other Christian prisoners from the city of Al Qaryatayn.”

Father Mourad that his captors regularly asked him to declare his faith.

“Almost every day there was someone who came to my prison and asked me ‘what are you?’

“I would answer: ‘I’m a Nazarene, in other words, a Christian.’

“‘So you’re an infidel,’ they shouted. ‘Since you’re a Christian, if you don't convert we’ll slit your throat with a knife’.”

Despite the threats, the priest refused to renounce Christ.

Father Mourad said he wore a disguise in order to escape.

“I escaped on a motorbike with the help of a Muslim friend. But now I'm working with an Orthodox priest and other Bedouin friends and a Muslim friend to free the 200 other Christians who are still imprisoned,” he said.

According to the priest, 40 other Christians were able to escape the same day as his interview with Italian television.

Monday, September 28, 2015

Back in February of 2014, in response to the picture I took above on a street near my home, I wrote:

She was in a black Nissan Versa with a message scrawled on her backwindshield. At first, I wasn't close enough to read it but was intrigued because the message was longer than those usually scrawled on the back of a car.

As I got closer, I was able to make out what it said... and was deeply moved.

...

Tonight I'm asking you loyal readers and those of you who've stumbled by to spread the word, to pray for Wes, to pray for caregivers, his mother and family. To pray for a miracle. I've addedhim to my list of intentions and will pray a Rosary for him daily.

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, “Be holy because I [am] holy.”

And

Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

And

He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began...

And the Catechism is right clear as well:

2013 "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."65 All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."66

In order to reach this perfection the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ's gift, so that . . . doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor. Thus the holiness of the People of God will grow in fruitful abundance, as is clearly shown in the history of the Church through the lives of so many saints.67

2014 Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments - "the holy mysteries" - and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all.

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.

I can attest to the battle aspect of pursuing holiness. I say that because frankly and bluntly, I suck at being holy. Seriously.

When I think of holy men and women, I think of those who are gentle, meek, humble, kind, quiet and sweet. I am rarely any one of those things at any one time, much less all of them at once. In fact, I think it not to be a stretch to say that I'm the opposite of those things daily.

Yet, I want to be holy. I do. I'd love to one day, when I'm dead and gone, have someone remember me as a holy person. That would be significant. That would be incredible. That would be miraculous.

I say all this because yesterday, I came across what follows:

“Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness… Consequently, it is not the fact that we have never erred but our capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness which makes us saints. And we can all learn this way of holiness”

I have a huge capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness. I'm constantly willing to kiss and make up... or at least hug and do so.

I'm willing to bet many of us do who are striving to be faithful.

Pope Benedict's words are a game changer in many respects. He's suggesting that we who are earthy, we who are chief among sinners, we who offend frequently and fall way too often, we have a chance to not only be holy but... to be saintly.

Throughout the history of religion and philosophy, a puritanical strain is indeed apparent. Whether it manifests itself as Manichaeism, Gnosticism, or Platonic dualism, the puritanical philosophy teaches that spirit is good and matter is evil or fallen. In most such schemas, the whole purpose of life is to escape from matter, especially from sexuality, which so ties us to the material realm. But authentic Biblical Christianity is not puritanical. The Creator God described in the book of Genesis made the entire panoply of things physical — planets, stars, the moon and sun, animals, fish and even things that creep and crawl upon the earth — and found all of it good, even very good. Accordingly, there is nothing perverse or morally questionable about bodies, sex, sexual longing or the sexual act. In fact, it’s just the contrary. When, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus himself is asked about marriage and sexuality, he hearkens back to the book of Genesis and the story of creation: “At the beginning of creation God made them male and female; for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become as one. They are no longer two but one flesh” (Mk. 10:6-8). That last sentence is, dare I say it, inescapably “sexy.” Plato might have been a puritan, and perhaps John Calvin too, but Jesus most certainly was not.

So given this stress on the goodness of sex and sexual pleasure, what separates the Christian view from, say, the “Playboy” philosophy? The simple answer is that, for Biblical people, sexuality must be placed in the wider context of love, which is to say willing the good of the other. It is fundamental to Catholic spirituality and morality that everything in life must be drawn magnetically toward love, must be conditioned and transfigured by love. Thus, one’s business concerns must be marked by love, lest they devolve into crass materialism; and one’s relationships must be leavened by love, lest they devolve into occasions for self-interested manipulation; even one’s play must be directed toward love, lest it devolve into mere self-indulgence. Sex is no exception to this rule. The goodness of sexual desire is designed, by its very nature, to become ingredient in a program of self-forgetting love and hence to become something rare and life enhancing. If you want to see what happens when this principle is ignored, take a long hard look at the hookup culture prevalent among many young — and not so young — people today. Sex as mere recreation, as contact sport, as a source only of superficial pleasure has produced armies of the desperately sad and anxious, many who have no idea that it is precisely their errant sexuality that has produced such deleterious effects in them. When sexual pleasure is drawn out of itself by the magnetic attraction of love, it is rescued from self-preoccupation.

Outstanding stuff and there's more of it at the link. Well worth the click over.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

“Father … I have a problem with forgiving” said Sonia as she folded the last of the vestments and put them away in their cupboard in the Sacristy.

“What do you mean? A problem with forgiving …”

“I know you’ve always said we should forgive with all our heart … unreservedly … if we want God to forgive us our sins. I understand that … and I try as best I can to forgive wholeheartedly.”

“But …” smiled the priest, “but in this case …”

She smiled back.

“But in this case it is different. There’s this woman at work who has hurt me really bad. She lied about me Father. And as a result I was severely reprimanded by our manager and I was made to lose a day’s pay, which I cannot afford. We used to be friends, but she lied to cover up her mistake and I got unfairly punished.”

“This is terrible,” said Father Ignatius frowning at the unfairness of what he’d just heard. “Is there not some sort of appeal procedure at your workplace?"

“No, ” Sonia said. “The thing is, this woman came to see me yesterday and apologized profusely for what she had done. She cried her heart out and said she could not have been found out to have made yet another mistake. She was on her last warning and another mistake would mean losing her job. That’s why she lied and put the blame on me. She begged me to forgive her, which I did straightaway Father. I told her to think no more about it and that all was now OK.”

“That’s very generous and loving of you, so what is the problem?” asked the priest.

“She wants us to be friends again, as before. We used to visit each other at our homes, go shopping together, or pick up each others’ children from school and so on. She wants everything to be as before.

“I find that very difficult. I just can’t trust her anymore and I want us to keep our distance. I forgive her as I said; but I can’t go back as before. I think I can speak and be nice to her at work but that’s as far as it goes; I can’t be friends again. Is my forgiveness worthless?”

“No … it is not worthless,” replied Father Ignatius gently, “when we forgive someone else, we touch their very soul with the merciful love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

“When we forgive people it means that we no longer hold their wrongdoings to account. We no longer bear them any malice or ill-feelings or ill-will. We acknowledge that we forgive them and we let them go their own way free from any fear of punishment or retribution on our part.

“This doesn’t mean however that we forget the pain caused to us. How can we? The hurt is imprinted in our memory and try as we might the chances are that we’ll remember it time and again. It’s only natural. You forgave her and told her so …”

Sonia nodded; holding back her tears.

“And that’s all that is expected of you,” continued the priest gently, noticing that she was very upset at the mere thought of the event.

“We all have a right, a duty even, to protect ourselves and to protect our loved ones. If we feel uncomfortable about a particular situation or relationship, we have every right to distance ourselves from it.

“For very understandable reasons you feel uncomfortable at being friendly with this person as you were before; visiting each other and picking each others’ children from school and so on.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Tell her politely that you’ve forgiven her and that you feel both of you should leave it at that.”

“But,” Sonia interrupted, “how can that be forgiveness? By keeping my distance implies that I’m still holding something against her. She knows that, you and I know that, and God knows that.”

Father Ignatius smiled.

“Oh yes. God knows that all right; and He knows the reason behind it too.” he said.

“Let me tell you a story. Jesus once taught His disciples and His followers about Himself. He said, ‘whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in him.’

“A number of His followers found this difficult to understand. What does He mean? Eat His flesh and drink His blood? Even today, many find this very concept difficult to understand; so you can imagine how it was in those times.

“So a number of Christ’s followers decided to leave and no longer follow Him. What did Jesus do?

“He didn’t call them back. He didn’t say, ‘Wait, let me explain. This is what I meant to say.’ He didn’t compromise His position in any way.

“He just let them go. He even asked His twelve disciples, ‘How about you, do you want to go as well?’

“You see Sonia; Jesus forgave them and let them go. He didn’t curse them and send plagues and pestilence on them and their families for generations.”

She smiled again feeling a little calmer.

“He just forgave them and let them go. Which is what you should also do.” said Father Ignatius serenely.

Monday, May 25, 2015

A friend of mine was telling me recently about an interesting incident. He and his family had just left a local department store and were walking toward their car. He was lagging behind the others a bit when a stranger stopped him.

The man was disheveled and actually reeked, something for which he apologized. He explained to my friend, who had signaled protectively to his family to get into the car, that he needed $15 to stay in a nearby hotel he had been referred to by a local homeless shelter. The shelter had no room for him that night and had told him about this hotel that could put him up for $15. He went on to explain that he had a job interview the next day and that he really needed that shower.

My buddy, a guy known to think things through, told me that the guy, despite his appearance, sounded genuine so he decided to ask him what the name of this nearby hotel was. The feller didn't hesitate and told him. My friend used his smart phone to find and then dial the hotel. The story checked out. They did indeed offer cheap rooms to those who had been referred by the shelter.

The friend turned to the stinking man and handed him a $20 bill and sent him on his way.

But the story wasn't quite through.

A number of months later, my friend's wife was approached by a clean-shaven man in a business suit. He told her who he was and how a man she was with some months back had helped him out when he was in dire need. He told her that the following day, he had aced a job interview and had been hired by a local company and had been gainfully employed ever since.

He then handed her a $100 while relaying his gratitude.

Now I'm no fool and neither I'm sure are you. Not every story of giving to someone in need ends this way. Sad but true. In fact, more times than not, we're likely to get burned.

But look, what's the cost? A few bucks here, a few bucks there?

My pal took a chance. He saw dignity in a person where most people see a bum.

We're called to see dignity in people and my buddy answered that call. Beautifully.

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Courtney Hoffman was one of thousands of people who donated over $842,000 to the Christian owners of the pizzeria last week after a high volume of online threats caused the business to temporarily close its doors. The outrage ensued after the owners told a local news crew that they would happily serve gay people in its restaurant, but would refuse to cater a gay wedding.

That’s why Hoffman’s donation stood out. While she clearly disagrees with the owners’ beliefs, she still supports their right to operate their business based on those beliefs. In addition to her $20 donation to Memories Pizza, Hoffman wrote:

“As a member of the gay community, I would like to apologize for the mean spirited attacks on you and your business. I know many gay individuals who fully support your right to stand up for your beliefs and run your business according to those beliefs. We are outraged at the level of hate and intolerance that has been directed at you and I sincerely hope that you are able to rebuild.”

Kris Cruz, a radio host and producer of “The Jeff Adams Show,” was the first person to flag Hoffman’s donation. He then contacted her through Facebook and she agreed to join them on the air Monday.

Cruz started with the “big question” — Why did she do it?

“My girlfriend and I are small business owners, and we think there is a difference between operating in a public market space and then attaching the name of your business to a private event,” she said. “Like, if we were asked to set up at an anti-gay marriage rally, I mean, we would have to decline.”

There's more at the link, including tape of an radio interview conducted by a local radio station.

God bless and keep Ms. Hoffman, a courageous woman willing to face down the mob and stand up for true tolerance.

Sunday, April 05, 2015

Tod Worner, from his Facebook page, turned us on to this Easter gem from Pope Benedict XVI:

The Book of Revelation’s vision of heaven expresses what we see by faith at Easter: the Lamb who was slain lives. Since he lives, our weeping comes to an end and is transformed into laughter (cf. Rev 5:4f.). When we look at the Lamb, we see heaven opened. God sees us, and God acts, albeit differently from the way we think and would like him to act. Only since Easter can we really utter the first article of faith; only on the basis of Easter is this profession rich and full of consolation: I believe in God, the Father Almighty. For it is only from the Lamb that we know that God is really Father, really Almighty. No one who has grasped that can ever be utterly despondent and despairing again. No one who has grasped that will ever succumb to the temptation to side with those who kill the Lamb. No one who has understood this will know ultimate fear, even if he gets into the situation of the Lamb. For there he is in the safest possible place.

Easter, therefore, invites us not only to listen to Jesus but also, as we do so, to develop our interior sight. This greatest festival of the Church’s year encourages us, by looking at him who was slain and is risen, to discover the place where heaven is opened. If we comprehend the message of the Resurrection, we recognize that heaven is not completely sealed off above the earth. Then—gently and yet with immense power—something of the light of God penetrates our life.

I'm ok with Easter bunnies. I'm ok with colored eggs. But my hope is that at some point today, we'll pause, go deeper and think through what the day truly means and represents.